The Next Step is basically about my short experience in college. What i have learned so far and how I plan to better myself with college and life.

Sunday, January 17, 2010

Hard Work

This blog today will be about the work involved in college. Now as a freshman in college I can’t say that I know all the work that goes along with college, but from my short experience there is a lot. I realized this late. I looked at college more like high school. There was work in to be done in high school but I could prolong that and still pass. College is nothing like high school. There is a lot that you have to deal with on your own.

My first example would be the syllabus. I never really read a syllabus until I got into college. We did receive them in high school but we never really had to look at it. This was different because in college the instructor goes over the syllabus once. Then from that point on it’s the students job to keep looking at it and studying for test and quizzes. I found this out the hard way. My math class has labs that we do but the instructor didn’t tell us when it was due. She just asked for it the day it was due. This was bad because I didn’t look at the syllabus. So I didn’t know that we had a lab due. Along with looking at the syllabus I should have been doing the homework that was due.

Me not doing homework is another example of the work that goes with college. I would look at my syllabus and again get that high school mentality. I wouldn’t do the homework because I thought that my instructor wouldn’t collect it. So when ever we had a quiz but my instructor took to long reviewing instead of giving us a quiz she would collect the homework. This was bad for me because as stated earlier I didn’t do my homework. This was another wake up call for me that I was no longer in high school. Also I need to start getting serious and do my work.

There is more work than that but that is pretty much what I have experienced so far. Sooner or later because of the major I have chosen I will soon have to do labs in class. Those I will definitely be a lot of work and I’m going to have to be prepared. I will be prepared by looking at the syllabus and by doing my homework so I am not struggling or failing.

3 comments:

I understand what you are talking about when you say that college is a lot different than high school. I experienced some of the same things. During the fall quarter I took psychology, and the professor handed us a syllabus and went over it on the first day. Then about four weeks later we had our first exam, and apparently we had a few papers that were also due. I had no idea, because the assignments were on the syllabus and I hadn't looked at it since the first day at school. That's when I learned that I actually had to look at my syllabus that a professor handed me.

I agree there is a lot of work that goes along with college. I do not have time to do most of the work. I have a busy schedule. I work, go to church, and helping my friends and family out. Sometimes I am way too stressed out to sit down and work out my homework I just want to relax.

I realized there is a lot of work late also. Yea I feel like my high school did not prepare me for college at all. When I got to college it was completely different. Like my math classes in high school did not prepare me for college what so ever. The syllabus was really different I never had that in high school either. Most of the work I get in college just seems like busy work when am I ever going to use some of this stuff for my actually major?

From a teacher's perspective, I agree that many students learn the hard way of how important a document a syllabus is, especially in the sense that it is meant to be referred to throughout the quarter.

I wonder, do they go over the importance of the syllabus in your USAS classes?